The Pen Pal Project // Alex Gaskarth

18.

"Well, I'm going to tell you anyway," Alex announced, "You look like shit. And I say that in the nicest way possible. But honestly Kendall, you look like you haven't slept in days."

She sheepishly looked at the ground, "I haven't really."

Alex furrowed his eyebrows, "Why not? Please tell me this isn't about the whole kissing thing is it?"

"It's complicated. And no it's not about that."

"I've got all the time in the world Kendall. Come on talk to me," He looked at her with those big brown eyes of his. They told her to tell him, to trust him, that he cared and understood.

"I don't want to talk about it," she mumbled.

Alex groaned, "Do you want to go for a walk?"

She glanced up at him then back down to her hands, knotting them together again, "I think I'm just going to go home."

The boy sighed and reached a hand across the table, placing a hand delicately on her shoulder, "I'm ready to listen. I can tell something is wrong, and I can tell you that I won't let it go until I know you're alright."

Kendall shook his hand away and stood up, walking out into the brisk air.

It didn't surprise her when Alex started walking next to her; in fact she kind of hoped he would've.

Kendall could feel her body rhythmically tense then release, and then tense up again. She was going to have a panic attack soon.

That was the thing with Kendall's panic attacks—she just knew. Maybe it was some weird intuition or maybe she just knew how her body worked. But her body involuntarily tensing sent her a bad signal. Another thing was, once she noticed the phenomenon, she could predict when it would come; it could be thirty seconds or never at all.

But Kendall wasn't willing to take any chances. She started to sprint into the park. She had to go somewhere secluded before it happened.

"Kendall!" She heard behind her.

"Alex please! I'll come find you in ten minutes, just let me go on my own for a while," she called back.

She didn't sound very convincing, but at the same time she knew she had to make an effort. She didn't want to have another attack with one of her friends present.

Eventually she found her favorite spot in the park. It was under a big tree on the top of one of the hills.

Kendall sat down, her back resting against the bark and she pulled her knees into her chest and rocked gently back and forth, trying to get her breathing under control; she wanted to avoid this attack if at all possible.

After a few minutes she had calmed herself down to the point where she thought she would be fine for a while.

That all changed when someone plopped down beside her.

She screamed in fear and instantly grabbed her chest to try and calm herself down before she went into a full blown panic attack.

"You know," he said, "I do the same thing."

Kendall barely glanced over at him, "You don't know a thing."

"Maybe. But I do know that you're trying to stop a panic attack. And I know that's why you ran away from me. And I know what it feels like. The sheer panic of not being able to breathe; having to desperately try to get oxygen into your lungs in order to stay alive. The helplessness you feel during and after it happens. The tears that come because you thought you could be better than a stupid panic attack," he listed.